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Lot Essay
Landscape painting has always been the cornerstone of Francis Newton Souza’s oeuvre, and would remain at the heart of his practice throughout his illustrious career. From the picturesque scenes of Goa and Mumbai that he portrayed in the 1940s, the artist would go on to paint several views inspired by the natural landscapes and manmade structures he encountered in Europe, and later North America. Fellow artist Jagdish Swaminathan has described Souza as a “painter of cityscapes and religious themes. While in the latter he is loaded with a troubled presentiment, in the former he is singularly devoid of emotive inhibitions […] Souza’s cityscapes are the congealed visions of a mysterious world” (J. Swaminathan, ‘Souza’s Exhibition’, Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, March 1995, p. 31).
Souza began to gain acclaim for his iconic landscapes when he was living in London in the 1950s and 60s, and examples of works from this period have been exhibited in several institutional shows, including in 2018 at All Too Human, an exhibition dedicated to painters of the London School at Tate Britain including Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. In 1962, having cemented his position within London’s artistic circles, Anthony Blond published the first monograph on the artist written by Edwin Mullins, still regarded as the quintessential publication on his work of this critical period.
The same year as this landmark publication, Souza painted the present lot, a romanticized landscape in a vivid palette of blue, white and red. Here, a gleaming church or cathedral with two towers, stands out against a heavily textured blue sky. In the foreground, a few smaller structures seem to be in the shadows by comparison, even though they have the same fine-lined detailing as the church. All the buildings stand on a band of deep red earth with a few hints of foliage, heightening the starkness of the architecture against the dramatic sky. Although this work is not titled and does not indicate a specific location, it bears close resemblance to the iconic medieval Catholic cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, where Souza had exhibited his work in the early 1950s and met one of his most important patrons of the time, Harold Kovner.
Untitled (Townscape) is representative of a period of intense experimentation in Souza’s artistic career. His static painting style of the previous decade had evolved to become more dynamic and gestural, with the artist’s thick black outlines replaced by finer, sharper ones. Here, through the genre of landscape, Souza articulates this fundamental shift in his oeuvre, constructing his structures “using a mass of loops and small circles of dark paint superimposed onto broad swathes of rich colour, so that although the image is never quite lost, its architectural formality dissolves into a kind of passionate dance” (E. Mullins, Souza, London, 1962, p. 30). With its warm and bright palette reminiscent of the stained glass windows the artist remembers from the Catholic churches he visited with his grandmother as a child, Untitled (Townscape) is a vibrant, celebratory landscape, imbued with joie de vivre and a sense of jubilation.
Originally in the collection of Souza’s dealer and owner of Gallery One, Victor Musgrave, this painting was gifted by him to Albert Brown (1921-2002), an employee and friend. Mr. Brown often assisting Musgrave and his wife Ida Kar, completing construction, installation and odd jobs at their home and at the gallery. Sometimes, as part payment for his work, Mr. Brown was given works by gallery artists from Musgrave’s collection.
Souza began to gain acclaim for his iconic landscapes when he was living in London in the 1950s and 60s, and examples of works from this period have been exhibited in several institutional shows, including in 2018 at All Too Human, an exhibition dedicated to painters of the London School at Tate Britain including Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. In 1962, having cemented his position within London’s artistic circles, Anthony Blond published the first monograph on the artist written by Edwin Mullins, still regarded as the quintessential publication on his work of this critical period.
The same year as this landmark publication, Souza painted the present lot, a romanticized landscape in a vivid palette of blue, white and red. Here, a gleaming church or cathedral with two towers, stands out against a heavily textured blue sky. In the foreground, a few smaller structures seem to be in the shadows by comparison, even though they have the same fine-lined detailing as the church. All the buildings stand on a band of deep red earth with a few hints of foliage, heightening the starkness of the architecture against the dramatic sky. Although this work is not titled and does not indicate a specific location, it bears close resemblance to the iconic medieval Catholic cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, where Souza had exhibited his work in the early 1950s and met one of his most important patrons of the time, Harold Kovner.
Untitled (Townscape) is representative of a period of intense experimentation in Souza’s artistic career. His static painting style of the previous decade had evolved to become more dynamic and gestural, with the artist’s thick black outlines replaced by finer, sharper ones. Here, through the genre of landscape, Souza articulates this fundamental shift in his oeuvre, constructing his structures “using a mass of loops and small circles of dark paint superimposed onto broad swathes of rich colour, so that although the image is never quite lost, its architectural formality dissolves into a kind of passionate dance” (E. Mullins, Souza, London, 1962, p. 30). With its warm and bright palette reminiscent of the stained glass windows the artist remembers from the Catholic churches he visited with his grandmother as a child, Untitled (Townscape) is a vibrant, celebratory landscape, imbued with joie de vivre and a sense of jubilation.
Originally in the collection of Souza’s dealer and owner of Gallery One, Victor Musgrave, this painting was gifted by him to Albert Brown (1921-2002), an employee and friend. Mr. Brown often assisting Musgrave and his wife Ida Kar, completing construction, installation and odd jobs at their home and at the gallery. Sometimes, as part payment for his work, Mr. Brown was given works by gallery artists from Musgrave’s collection.